Exercise You Should be Doing: The Squeeze Press

Everyone wants a big chest. Everyone makes poor exercise choices. They place a high demand on the function of their shoulder and hinder their results. The Squeeze Press is an intelligent choice to train your chest while maintaining pain free shoulders.

The inner chest is very hard to target. Everyone wants that line that divides your pecs. It not only makes you look good, it helps you perform better in the gym.

A more robust set of pecs will allow you to press more, and also fill out your sweater in winter.

Most people perform a ton of dumbbell or cable flies to hit this area, and then complain when they get cranky shoulders.

There's a better way to target this area, while not aggravating your shoulders.

The Squeeze Press

As the name suggests you are both squeezing and pressing. By keeping pressure between the dumbbells you are engaging the more centered part of your pecs. Or as I like to call it- the cleavage muscles.

This is a better exercise choice than dumbbell flies.

Have you ever seen someone do a set of heavy dumbbell flies, put the dumbbells down and immediately start rubbing the front of their shoulder?

That's because flies put a ton of pressure on the anterior part of the shoulder girdle. Especially if you don't have the ability to perfectly retract your scapula during the movement. AKA if you have a tight upper back or neck you will not get many benefits from a fly. You'll just bang your shoulder up.

The Squeeze Press requires no extra mobility in the shoulder joint. If you can press dumbbells regularly you can perform this movement with no pain, and see great benefits.

How to Do It:

Set up as you would for a normal DB Bench Press

Place the dumbbells flat side together

Squeeze the f*ck out of them. Imagine you are either crushing the skulls of your enemies, or that there is a small piece of paper between the DBs that you cannot let go.

Press normally. Drive your traps into the bench, squeeze your glutes and make sure your feet are properly anchored on the floor.

Repeat

Why I like it:

Less demand on scapular function

Hits more muscle than a DB fly

Reinforces proper horizontal pressing mechanics

Trains your triceps

Why You Should Do it:

You have cranky shoulders but still want a strong chest

Because I said so

There is always an intelligent way to train around pain, disfunction or lack of mobility. An old injury or bad habits is NO EXCUSE to not train. You don't need to spend hours doing fluffy foam roller drills or physical therapy exercises in order to hit your goals. You just need to employ intelligent techniques and exercise selection.